“FORWARD” The Threat of Invisible Snow
Radiation contamination is an ongoing concern in the city of Fukushima. A Buddhist priest there is active in decontamination activities. For example, he has allowed temple land to be used for temporary storage of contaminated soil. The program chronicles his efforts, from Spring through Winter.
“Massive fallout spread over large areas and still coats the ground” — Resident: “The rise was unexpectedly fast… I’m shocked, I didn’t think it could get this high”
All material provided on this channel is for educational purposes only. No copyright infringement intended.
Earlier this year we held what will hopefully be the first of many Safecast Hackathons. Since Safecast has such a fantastic team of volunteers working together, we thought it might be beneficial to bring everyone together in one city for a week to hash through ideas and cross things off the todo lists. While the ability to have a distributed team is amazing, there’s immense value in getting everyone together face to face. We did this for the first time in January – bringing team members from Los Angeles, Boston and Dublin over to Tokyo to work closely with those already in Tokyo as well as volunteers from elsewhere around Japan.
We took over two (sometimes three) floors at our offices in Shibuya (thanks to Loftwork & FabCafe for letting us) and worked on wide range of Safecast related issues. Hardware, software, devices and mobile issues. Our data upload area has been completely redesigned and our map now updates hourly with refreshed data from our servers so it’s incredibly up to date – more so than it’s been in over a year. These were both major milestones that we’re very happy to have pulled off.
We also walked away with a firm grasp of some next steps. We’ve already begun planning for our next Hackathon which will likely take place in April in Boston. Lesson learned from this one is to have more focus on fewer areas as things got a little chaotic in Tokyo, but each one of these will teach us something and we’re looking forward to the progress we continue to make. Below is the final toast, one of the volunteers brought some amazing Sake from Fukishima for everyone, as well some photos from the week.
(Earth Focus: Episode 32) Nuclear Power: Risks and Consequences, an original Earth Focus investigative report, looks at the untold stories behind three of the world’s largest nuclear disasters: Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima. According to government and industry officials, no one died as a result of Three Mile Island and only low doses of radiation — equivalent to a single chest XRay were released.
But many local residents disagree and cite medical evidence that radiation released from the Three Mile Island reactor was severe enough to cause disease and death. It’s been 30 years but the controversy continues. Chernobyl was the worse nuclear disaster in history.
A new book, Chernobyl: Consequences of a Catastrophe says that almost a million people died as a result of the nuclear accident — not 4,000 as The World Health Organization and the International Atomic Energy Agency claim. A screw up or a coverup? Earth Focus looks at evidence that links radioactive exposure to diminished intelligence, premature aging and a variety of other health conditions.
Given the severity of the accident in Fukushima and the inability of the government to provide action to safeguard large portions of its population, the Japanese government moved the goal posts on what is considered safe radiation exposure for children and nuclear workers.
Japanese organized crime, the Yakuza, is now becoming actively involved in the cleanup of radioactive waste.
A TEPCO spokesman admitted that the utility gave inaccurate information to the parliamentary commission but claims it did not intentionally lie about conditions within the structure.
In July a parliamentary report said Fukushima was a man-made disaster stemming from Japan’s culture of “reflexive obedience.”
At least 350 people affected by the 2011 Fukushima nuclear meltdown will file a class action lawsuit against the Japanese government and the plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) on the second anniversary of the disaster.
This handout picture, taken by Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) on March 18, 2011 and released on February 1, 2013 shows water discharged against unit 3 reactor building at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant at Okuma town in Fukushima prefecture. (AFP Photo/TEPCO)
Lawyers representing residents whose homes and farms were hit by radiation in the wake of the disaster said it was the largest suit on the issue filed against the government.
The plaintiffs will further seek some US$535 each in compensation from TEPCO for every month they have been displaced as a result of the accident.
They also plan to seek a court injunction that will require both the government and TEPCO to reduce radiation levels in the affected area to pre-disaster levels.
The suit will be filed on March 11, the two-year anniversary of the world’s worst nuclear accident since the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. Several other similar class-action suits against both the government and TEPCO will be filed with the Tokyo District Court on the same day.
“The government promoted nuclear power as a national policy and has been closely involved with it,” lawyer Izutaro Managi told AAP news agency.
“Being fully aware of the danger of losing power due to a tsunami, the government neglected its duty to prevent such an event,” he said. “This is a suit to recover a Fukushima with neither radiation nor nuclear power,” he continued.
The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster occurred after a 9.0-magnitude earthquake and a subsequent tsunami crashed into the power station and knocked out its cooling system leading to the meltdown of three reactor cores. Tens of thousands were forced to flee the area and many are still unable to return.
TEPCO ‘lies’ to government
With residents preparing to sue the government and TEPCO for their role in the worst nuclear disaster in a generation, on Thursday the power company found itself in hot water for allegedly misleading a government panel over possible quake damage to its reactor building.
TEPCO said that radiation levels were “dreadfully high” in order to prevent an onsite inspection of its crippled nuclear plant, according to Mitsuhiko Tanaka, a former member of the now-disbanded Diet commission, which had been tasked with uncovering the cause of the nuclear crisis.
The commission had hoped to determine to see if the isolation condensers – key safety components at nuclear plants – had been damaged in the earthquake.
The National Diet is Japan’s bicameral legislature. It consists of a lower house, called the House of Representatives, and an upper house, called the House of Councilors.
TEPCO had denied they were damaged in the quake and falsified actual conditions within the plant to keep inspectors out, Tanaka said in a statement submitted to the chiefs of the two Diet chambers on Thursday.
Toshimitsu Tamai, then chief of TEPCO’s corporate planning department, urged Tanaka not to carry out the probe in light of major safety concerns, saying “If you got lost, you would run into areas with dreadfully high levels of radiation,” The Asahi Shimbun newspaper reports.
Police forces should no longer be allowed to store the personal information of peaceful protesters on a domestic extremism database if they are not linked to any crimes, a court heard today.
Lawyers acting for 87-year-old John Catt, who has not been linked to any crimes at demonstrations he has attended, argued that police are maintaining a file on their client simply because his regular presence at protests, in contravention of his right to privacy.
The case has major implications for the way the police go about placing protest groups under surveillance in the future.
Tim Owen QC told the court that the police’s current approach means that students who peacefully march at demonstrations where others are involved in violence could end up on the extremism database because they “happen to be seen at another demonstration”.
He added that the effect of the police’s surveillance of regular, peaceful protesters was that they would come to expect to be placed on a database of domestic extremists.
And the court heard that the police had shown an “almost knee-jerk response” in presuming that anyone who turns up at a protest, regardless of what they do, “their name goes on the list”.
Shamik Dutta of Bhatt Murphy said: “The Court of Appeal will determine whether protesters forego the right to privacy if they engage in peaceful protest. If the appeal is successful, police forces will need to review the way in which they gather and retain information about protesters who have never committed any offence”.
Mr Catt’s lawyers did not argue against police officers placing protesters under surveillance where they thought there was a risk of disorder, but said that there was no reason to keep the information gathered once it became plain that the subject was not linked to any crime, either as a perpetrator or as a witness; as they said was the case with their client.
Keeping the dossier, they argued, was in contravention of his right to privacy.
The Equality and Human Rights Commission and Liberty have both been given permission to intervene. John Wadham, General Counsel of the ECHR, said: “We accept the need for there to be measures to ensure the safety of the public , but these need to be proportionate. The right to protest peacefully in public is a core human right and any measures that restrict this right should be subject to proper scrutiny.
“The Commission is concerned that the retention of material on this database, and the inadequate safeguards for its proper use and deletion, are an unlawful breach of the right to freedom of speech and freedom of protest. The police now need to take measures to ensure that the information they hold does not contravene the law.”
Mr Catt, who has been heavily involved with the Smash EDO campaign – among others, is appealing an earlier High Court ruling, which allowed police to keep photographs and other personal information belonging to him on the National Domestic Extremism Database. Last year, Mr Justice Irwin said that protesters registering their feelings in public had no reasonable expectation of privacy.
The first case followed the refusal of the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) to permanently delete all the data retained about Mr Catt, who found 66 entries about him had been made on the National Domestic Extremism Database, including one about his appearance.
His appeal is being heard in the High Court by the Master of the Rolls Lord Dyson, Lord Justice Patten and Lord Justice Tomlinson and continues tomorrow.
A new code of practice will be introduced under the guise of forcing authorities to comply with a set of principles called ”surveillance by consent”.
On the face of it, it seems like a good move, but look just beneath the surface and we soon discover it does little to slow down the growth of the surveillance state; and, in some cases, even protects Big Brother.
Authorities that breach the code will not face sanctions, and it only applies to a fraction of the UK’s 4 million CCTV cameras. A new watchdog will be created, The new Surveillance Camera Commissioner, but will have absolutely no powers of enforcement or inspection.
Emma Carr, deputy director of privacy and civil liberties campaign group Big Brother Watch, said:
We have repeatedly warned that the public will not have confidence in a part-time regulator who has no powers, no legally binding rules and isn’t even able to take action against organisations breaking the law.
For the new system to cover only a tiny fraction of CCTV cameras, not even those in school lavatories, it is clearly a disappointment to the wide range of people concerned that in many areas CCTV in Britain has got out of hand that the new system is largely a box-ticking exercise with no consequences for people who ignore it.
However, police will have to place warning signs at the roadside of major routes, informing motorists they are being watched on CCTV.
EPISODE BREAKDOWN: On this episode of Breaking the Set, Abby Martin takes an in depth look at the lawsuit against the National Defense Authorization Act’s indefinite detention clause, starting with a short look at just how many people actually know about it. Abby then talks to one of the plaintiffs spearheading the lawsuit, Tangerine Bolen, about how the suit came to be, and why the corporate media has not picked up the story, Abby also talks to former whistleblower, Jesselyn Radack, about the extent and reach of the NDAA as it applies to journalists, activists and whistleblowers. BTS wraps up the show with an interview with journalist, author and lead plaintiff in the case against indefinite detention, Chris Hedges, about the historical precedent the NDAA lawsuit sets, and why every American should care.
Sierra Adamson interviews Chris Hedges at the hearing for the second court of appeals in the Hedges v Obama NDAA lawsuit. Hedges explains what has happened in the lawsuit to date, the next steps and what he sees in America’s upcoming future.
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Michael Portillo, the defense minister under Conservative prime minister John Major in the 1990’s, told the Financial Times last month that Britain maintained its arsenal “partly for industrial and employment reasons, and mainly for prestige.” He called it “a tremendous waste of money.”
Advisers reach consensus that current arsenals are larger than needed to target foes
Obama administration embraces major new nuclear weapons cut
Advisers reach consensus that current arsenals are larger than needed to target foes
Senior Obama administration officials have agreed that the number of nuclear warheads the U.S. military deploys could be cut by at least a third without harming national security, according to sources involved in the deliberations.
They said the officials’ consensus agreement, not yet announced, opens the door to billions of dollars in military savings that might ease the federal deficit and improve prospects for a new arms deal with Russia before the president leaves office. But it is likely to draw fire from conservatives, if previous debate on the issue is any guide.
The results of the internal review are reflected in a draft of a classified decision directive prepared for Obama’s signature that guides how U.S. nuclear weapons should be targeted in the future against potential foes, according to four sources with direct knowledge of it. The sources, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to a reporter about the review, described the president as fully on board, but said he has not signed the document.
The document directs the first detailed Pentagon revisions in U.S. targeting since 2009, when the military’s nuclear war planners last took account of a substantial shrinkage — roughly by half from 2000 to 2008 — in the total number of nuclear weapons in the U.S. arsenal. It makes clear that an even smaller nuclear force can still meet all defense requirements.
Although the document offers various options for Obama, his top advisers reached their consensus position last year, after a review that included the State Department, the Defense Department, the National Security Council, the intelligence community, the U.S. Strategic Command, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the office of Vice President Joseph Biden, according to the sources.
Several said the results were not disclosed at the time partly because of political concerns that any resulting controversy might rob Obama of popular votes in the November election. Some Republican lawmakers have said they oppose cutting the U.S. arsenal out of concern that it could diminish America’s standing in the world.
The new policy directive, which formally implements a revised nuclear policy Obama adopted in 2010, endorses the use of a smaller U.S. arsenal to deter attack or protect American interests by targeting fewer, but more important, military or political sites in Russia, China, and several other countries. This can be accomplished by 1000-1100 warheads, the sources said, instead of the 1,550 allowed under an existing arms treaty.
The 2010 policy called for reducing the role of nuclear weapons, arguing that they are “poorly suited to address the challenges posed by suicidal terrorists and unfriendly regimes seeking nuclear weapons.” But many critics have charged that not much of the policy has been implemented. Obama himself even joked in a video message to the Jan. 26 annual dinner of Washington’s exclusive Alfalfa Club, that he could not recall why he won his 2009 Nobel Peace Prize [the Oslo committee attributed it partly to his stimulation of “disarmament and arms control negotiations”].
With the election behind him and a new national security team selected, Obama is finally prepared to send this new guidance to the Joint Chiefs of Staff and to open a new dialogue with Russia about corresponding reductions in deployed weapons beyond those called for in a 2011 treaty, according to two senior U.S. officials involved in the deliberations.
“It is all done,” said one. “We did so much work on that there is no interest in going back and taking another look at it.” The second official said completion of the new directive would become public in coming weeks, when Obama may mention the issue in his State of the Union address on Feb. 12, or in another speech specifically dedicated to the subject, similar to the April 2009 Prague address in which he promised to “take concrete steps towards a world without nuclear weapons.”
A halt has been called to the work for now, due to worries that public opinion will not accept the idea of such a potentially hazardous technology, with the inherent dangers of either a crash – in effect turning the drone into a so-called dirty bomb – or of its nuclear propulsion system falling into the hands of terrorists or unfriendly powers.
So sensitive is the issue that the summary does not spell out the fact that it is referring to a nuclear-powered drone, referring instead to “propulsion and power technologies that went well beyond existing hydrocarbon technologies”.
American scientists have drawn up plans for a new generation of nuclear-powered drones capable of flying over remote regions of the world for months on end without refuelling.
The blueprints for the new drones, which have been developed by Sandia National Laboratories – the US government’s principal nuclear research and development agency – and defence contractor Northrop Grumman, were designed to increase flying time “from days to months” while making more power available for operating equipment, according to a project summary published by Sandia.
“It’s pretty terrifying prospect,” said Chris Coles of Drone Wars UK, which campaigns against the increasing use of drones for both military and civilian purposes. “Drones are much less safe than other aircraft and tend to crash a lot. There is a major push by this industry to increase the use of drones and both the public and government are struggling to keep up with the implications.”
The highly sensitive research into what is termed “ultra-persistence technologies” set out to solve three problems associated with drones: insufficient “hang time” over a potential target; lack of power for running sophisticated surveillance and weapons systems; and lack of communications capacity.
The Sandia-Northrop Grumman team looked at numerous different power systems for large- and medium-sized drones before settling on a nuclear solution. Northrop Grumman is known to have patented a drone equipped with a helium-cooled nuclear reactor as long ago as 1986, and has previously worked on nuclear projects with the US air force research laboratory. Designs for nuclear-powered aircraft are known to go back as far as the 1950s.
The research team found that the nuclear drones were able to provide far more surveillance time and intelligence information per mission compared to other technologies, and also to reduce the considerable costs of support systems – eliminating the need, for example, for forward bases and fuel supplies in remote and possibly hostile areas.
The French energy giant is instead currently in talks with a number of Chinese energy companies about the possibility of their filling this void.
9 Feb 2013
Security Cleared Jobs web-site
The creation of security cleared nuclear sector jobs relies on a suitable framework being in place to support the erection of new plants, EDF Energy’s chief executive has indicated.
Vincent De Rivaz said that EDF’s plans to build four new nuclear plants in the UK would not be jeopardised by the withdrawal of partner Centrica from the project.
How can Paladin Mining afford to sue a small website, using the services of an even poorer Ashursts Australia?
Maybe because the money is coming from somewhere else perhaps? I am gathering data that links WPP group of companies with Ashursts.. For instance, Ahursts have a department in Japan since 2002. they work with industrial and other corporations in matters of litigation and other legal matters.. one company they work with in Japan is Dentsu, who are owned by WPP. Dentsu have been implicated in the most horrendous cover ups concerning the contamination of Japan by the Fukushima Daichi disaster.
The Daichi nuclear disaster has been covered extensively on this blog (nuclear-news.net).
However Paladin do have things they want kept quiet, such as the use of Australian taxpayer money to use as part of their PR campaign to win hearts and minds in Africa.
So is the Australian government footing the bill for these legal actions against the Australian press and bloggers? aided by the worlds biggest conglomorate of PR and Media companies?
And there is the UK connection too!
WPP who are implicated in Tax fraud and deception, have returned to the UK since 2011 owing to even better tax evasion conditions. Ashursts are a UK firm and London is the centre for mining corporations and transactions. An important customer base for WPP who help to manage the bad image and failing economies of these businesses.
The UK is also the centre for Nuclear research and development and supports biased science that proports to claim that there are no effects of note from nuclear accidents.
The advertising money lobbying power of these corporations were even able to mostly tame the Guardian newspaper.. This was after a successful nuclear promotion that began in the early 2000`s. And this catapulted the nuclear futures and mining of uranium profits to new levels!!
Then Fukushima Daichi happened.
Now I believe that part of the war on resources is to buy or steal all the uranium mining areas of the globe and then to restrict the uranium mining to push the price up to a level that does not cause such a loss. At the moment china has other direct sources of uranium but they are disappearing and china has no uranium deposits of note, though it does have a monopoly on some other metals etc
The war on resources is NOT being peacefully negotiated, it is being fought for!
The legal, media and governmental agencies are all promoting their versions of reality to the public to limit any public backlash to these corporate and governmental crimes,
One point to note. Why shut down a small blog when so many others are allowed to get away with so much more? Is the CEO of a broke Ashurst really being paid by a broke Paladin? or is there something more?
i am currently having problems with the internet/computer etc and will post links relevant to and in support the above statement when i can use more than 1 browser window at a time?? 😦
Also, i can not post articles easily though i will try.. in the meantime, for posterity i will leave you with this very recent article concerning the very broke Ashurst Australia..
17 hours to post this article.. LOL! I luv windows XP ! cant use facebook either as it keeps jamming the computer,, ?? does david icke and alex jones have these problems??? not bleedin` likely mate!! ?? !! ?? i will let you decide what that is all about how are they still in operation as real news bloggers are crucified by the legal and security apparatus..FOOD FOR THOUGHT PERHAPS????
Thank you Christina for keeping us all informed.. Nuclear is a dead duck!! its obvious to any fool!
My heart goes out to the front line staff at Ashursts Australia! and I mean that! you were doing your jobs as specified and you got shat on! In the middle of a Global financial reccesion. If you are feeling bitter about this, there IS something you can do! Email;
arclight1132011-lemmingbites@yahoo.co.uk
Be careful to not leave a trail that goes back to you andIi will deal with any information by placing it on a server in ICELAND!! Land of Freedom of speech and protected servers.
Arclight2011 (aka sean)
The net profit for Ashurst’s non-Australian practice grew by just over 5 per cent in 2011-12 to £112 million ($170 million) derived from revenue of £322 million.
However, it is understood that current equity partner drawings for Australia are “through the floor”.
It means the profit gap between the Australian business and its international counterpart could be much bigger than forecast when merger talks began in late 2011
Claire Stewart
Axe aimed at Ashurst partners
PUBLISHED: 01 Feb 2013
Major law firm Ashurst is secretly planning to cull up to 50 of its 189 partners in Australia in an attempt by local management to make profit margins more attractive ahead of an upcoming vote for a financial tie-up with the global operation.
Sources close to the firm say the cuts could be a “bloodbath” and are concerned it may have disastrous consequences for the future of the domestic practice.
“…Some 80,000 people have been forced to flee the evacuation zone, and in many cases they have left behind pets, which are now dying of thirst or starvation. About 5800 licensed dogs are believed to be in the evacuation zone, plus thousands of unregistered animals and cats, along with beef and dairy cattle, pigs and a handful of exotic animals, such as the ostrich.
The Japanese government has been slammed for failing to allow owners back to their homes within the evacuation zone frequently enough to care for their pets. The government has also failed to implement a program to kill doomed livestock humanely….”
BREAKING NEWS: Two of the Hoshi Family Have Been Arrested as of Yesterday and detained by the Futaba Fukushima Police. Of course it is none other than animal activists Hoshi Hiroshi and Leo Hoshi. They cannot be contacted and are being charged with crimes. The Hoshi Hiroshi Family has been rescuing animals each weekend inside the zone and surroundings for almost 2 years as a private volunteer rescue group. This is atrocious and we will be showing our support. Stay tuned as we learn more. Please share with your friends in English, Japanese and other languages.
A SELF-DESCRIBED “animal rescue guerilla” has made a daring raid to the centre of Japan’s nuclear crisis to pluck to safety two dogs seen wandering around the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.
In recent months, Hiroshi Hoshi has made a series of trips to the radioactive dead zone around the plant to rescue distressed and abandoned pets while dodging roadblocks and police patrols.
He has come across countless animal corpses, dogs that had become cannibals and even an ostrich strolling the streets of a village within the 20km perimeter around the plant.
But perhaps the most amazing was the discovery via a camera trained permanently on the Fukushima Daiichi plant of the pair of Japanese Shiba dogs prowling around the highly radioactive plant more than three months after the beginning of the tsunami and nuclear crisis.
In the footage, the two biscuit-coloured dogs stand out clearly against the grey backdrop of wrecked reactor buildings and tangled metal, and they were spotted by supporters of Mr Hoshi, who were monitoring the internet feed of the camera.
“We knew those dogs would die eventually if they were left alone,” Mr Hoshi, 55, who runs an car parts distribution business, tells The Australian. “I thought, ‘If we can get there and possibly save them, why not?’.”
On June 5, he and several sympathisers donned protective suits and skirted police roadblocks in their car and drove right into the plant to where the camera is based. Before long, they had found the dogs, whisked them into their car and got them back to safety.
“For the past three months they have had such a tough time,” Mr Hoshi says. “When we got them, they weren’t even able to urinate or eat any kind of hard food. So we called up an emergency medical centre in Yokohama and they checked and treated them and then we took them to our home.”
We discuss Japan where the latest source of monetary inspiration is Korekiyo Takahasi, described by Ben Bernanke as the man who “brilliantly rescued” his country from the Great Depression of the 1930′s, while neglecting to mention that Takahasi was then assassinated by the army, who were angered by cuts to their wages. They also discuss the biggest Aso in Japan, finance minister Taro Aso, suggesting old people just ‘hurry up and die’ in order to save money for government. In the second half of the show, Max Keiser talks to former MI5 agent turned whistleblower, Annie Machon, about the global crackdown on the internet and the activists who live there.
American scientists have drawn up plans for a new generation of nuclear-powered drones capable of flying over remote regions of the world for months on end without refuelling.
nuclear-news 